


A Haysian Twist

by moodiful819



Series: Cranky Saltmates [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ben/Rose Friendship, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Hair Braiding, Mentioned Paige, Minor Spoilers, Post-TLJ, Redeemed Ben Solo, Saltmates, Who's Ready for a Feels Trip?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 05:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13264329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodiful819/pseuds/moodiful819
Summary: In which Ben and Rose get drunk and style each other's hair.





	A Haysian Twist

For a former warlord, he has very nimble fingers.

The thought flits across her mind as she sits cross-legged in front of Ben as he braids her hair. She can feel his fingers dance across her scalp as she watches his progress in a small mirror. There’s not much to the view besides his faintly-annoyed scowl as he holds a hair-tie in his mouth, but she’s glad for the company and honored when he shares that he used to braid his mother’s hair.

“Used to take hours,” he’d grumbled around the neck of a stolen Corellian wine bottle, but there was an unmistakable fondness in his distant gaze as he spoke. It was the same look she had when she complained about how Paige used to always steal her liwi fruits whenever they were in the canteen. Back when Paige was around to steal them.

(She gets to keep her liwi fruits all the time now without a care. She never thought she’d miss eating them cramped in an exhaust vent with her knees tucked to her chest.)

Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was nostalgia. Either way, it was how she found herself sat in front of Ben as he grumbled and fussed at her hair. He probably didn’t think it would take long to braid, but her fly-aways were legendary–It was a running joke in the old bomber crew that if they ever lost an X-wing, they could just pilot her hair–and even someone as practiced as Ben Solo would probably struggle (in addition to the length and his drunken state).

She thought he would give up. She did whenever she tried a new haircut or style–-but he pulled his hands away a few minutes later.

“Finished,” he announced, and she pulled the mirror back to see what he’d wrought on her head. 

It was a crown of braids. The style was meant for longer hair–-she could tell by the number of bobby pins nestled against her scalp–-but it didn’t stop her from turning her head this way and that as she followed the dark lopes of hair criss-crossing back behind her ear. Her fly-aways were tamed. She felt royal. She felt…pretty.

She wondered how she could keep it like this. Would it stay if she slept in it?

As if reading her mind–maybe he did. She still wasn’t sure how this whole Force thing worked–he told her, “I wouldn’t recommend it. You could stick your scalp, and Finn likes your little flips anyway.”

He matched his words with a little flitting motion with his fingers. Stars, Ben Solo had to be drunk if a former warlord was making flapping motions with his fingers.

“I thought we weren’t talking about those losers,” she reminded. It was-–after all–-”Vent Night,” where they could air their insecurities and complaints about their partners to each other and get advice, or at least have some company.

Ben merely grumbled to himself, reaching out towards the bottle on the bed as Rose crawled around him. “If they’re losers, what does that make us for falling in love with them?”

“Idiots,” she replied as she poked and prodded his shoulders. “Now sit up a sec. I need a better angle for this.”

He lifted himself for a second, but when it came time to rest his head in her lap, his motions were jerking. Awkward. As if even through the alcohol, fears of people touching him bled through like sunlight. 

Slowly, eventually, he put his head in her lap. She was a…friend. He could trust a friend.

But just to be sure, he pulled heavily from the bottle and waited for the wine to settle him. As he did, he watched Rose take a small comb from a box near her bed and felt her run her fingers through his hair.

“If you’re going to braid it, don’t. With your luck, you’d probably knot your fingers in my hair,” he slurred.

“Don’t get smart with me, Solo.” She tugged on his hair in warning. “Besides, it’s not a braid. I’m trying a Haysian twist,” she said running the comb through his hair.

“Never heard of it. Do you ever wear it?” he asked.

“Psht, no. Not with these wings on the side of my face,” she scoffed. “But Paige wore it all the time whenever she didn’t have her helmet on. She was good at it. She taught me how to do it when we were kids and let me do her hair when we both couldn’t sleep at night.”

As she spoke, she gathered his bangs and swept them back, locking them with a gentle push of the comb into his hair.

After she crawled out from under him, for a minute, Ben just laid there, not saying anything, not moving. Just thinking.

When he finally did move, he sat up and the twist slowly unraveled as Paige’s comb fell on the bed between them.

He wanted to say he was sorry, but what came out instead was, “Thank you.”

Rose simply shrugged. “You braided my hair. It’s the least I could do.”


End file.
